Let's Grade Each Stat

[Florete]

12 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well one could argue the fact that it's, on average, lower as precisely why its more valuable. What is the most valuable stat booster in virtually every game? No question it's the boots. Despite that movement is way lower than the other stats, yet gaining a single point of movement is immense. If that's considered an unfair comparison then we can just talk regular stat boosters. I know I would rather find a Dracoshield in most came than Speedwings.

Movement is not a combat stat and therefore not properly comparable.

Defense is lower on average, yet many of these units are still very good, because having a high Defense stat isn't important. The idea that it's lower because it's more valuable makes no sense to me. A unit with high enough Str, Skl, Spd, and Lck can render Def (and Res) completely worthless, but the same doesn't go in the other direction; no matter how much Def you have, you still want the offensive stats, because offense is key to winning in Fire Emblem.

I will add the caveat that Def becomes less important the more skilled a player is at the game because the best way to survive isn't to take less damage, it's to take no damage via your enemy already being dead.

1 minute ago, ping said:

I disagree with this part - for most of the series (I don't want to pretend that I know too much about post-Awakening FE), defensive stats were just lower, period. It also doesn't help that the most Def-focused class also suffers greatly in the One-Stat-To-Rule-Them-All, movement.

I do think that there are plenty units that benefit greatly from their defense - Milady (who admittedly is good at everything), Oswin (who would be really bad without his survivability), Jill and Haar, Heath, Cormag (I like bulky flyers, in case you couldn't tell). And in addition to that, all of these would benefit from even more Def, too. With the exception of that point of Spd that allows a unit to double an enemy, Str and Def are by far the most impactful stats per point. +3 Skl makes a unit a bit more reliable, +3 Def can allow a unit to just charge into even bigger groups of enemies.

Defensive stats were lower, and yet the best units often have little to no want for more.

Oswin would be bad without his survivability because it's all he has to his name to begin with. It doesn't make him a good unit (he's average at best), it just prevents him from being utter trash.

Melady, Jill, Haar (RD), Heath, and Cormag are good, but Def is a small part of it, if a part of it at all. Flight and powerful offense are much bigger factors. Consider that in all of these cases, the fliers considered the best in their respective games are almost always the ones who are around the longest, regardless of their Def stat.

More Def never hurts, but on many units it becomes superfluous. Obviously a unit who already has high Skl and average Def would rather get more Def, but in most contexts within FE as a series currently, I'd rather a unit get more Skl than more Def.

[Jotari]

29 minutes ago, Florete said:

Movement is not a combat stat and therefore not properly comparable.

Defense is lower on average, yet many of these units are still very good, because having a high Defense stat isn't important. The idea that it's lower because it's more valuable makes no sense to me. A unit with high enough Str, Skl, Spd, and Lck can render Def (and Res) completely worthless, but the same doesn't go in the other direction; no matter how much Def you have, you still want the offensive stats, because offense is key to winning in Fire Emblem.

I will add the caveat that Def becomes less important the more skilled a player is at the game because the best way to survive isn't to take less damage, it's to take no damage via your enemy already being dead.

Defensive stats were lower, and yet the best units often have little to no want for more.

Oswin would be bad without his survivability because it's all he has to his name to begin with. It doesn't make him a good unit (he's average at best), it just prevents him from being utter trash.

Melady, Jill, Haar (RD), Heath, and Cormag are good, but Def is a small part of it, if a part of it at all. Flight and powerful offense are much bigger factors. Consider that in all of these cases, the fliers considered the best in their respective games are almost always the ones who are around the longest, regardless of their Def stat.

More Def never hurts, but on many units it becomes superfluous. Obviously a unit who already has high Skl and average Def would rather get more Def, but in most contexts within FE as a series currently, I'd rather a unit get more Skl than more Def.

You're kind of arguing both ways there. Defense isn't important in Oswin's case because it's all he does. Yet it's not good in Jill's case because she also does other stuff well. It's kind of contradictory.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Movement is among the worst stats in the franchise, possibly only surpassing SKL, LCK, CHA. 

Every good unit in the franchise is good, not because they move a lot, but because they deal a lot of damage, they heal a lot or othe staff utility, they can take a lot of damage or are roleplaying airplanes for other units.

Thus, in order for MOV to be good, all other relevant stats must already be good. MOV does not make units good, it ENHANCES.

[Cysx]

4 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Movement is among the worst stats in the franchise, possibly only surpassing SKL, LCK, CHA. 

Every good unit in the franchise is good, not because they move a lot, but because they deal a lot of damage, they heal a lot or othe staff utility, they can take a lot of damage or are roleplaying airplanes for other units.

Thus, in order for MOV to be good, all other relevant stats must already be good. MOV does not make units good, it ENHANCES.

While this series in particular doesn't dabble too much into that territory, s-rpg units with next to no move(1 or 2) will typically suck no matter how high everything else is.

Similarly, having even as little as minus 2 move than average will seriously limit your opportunities to contribute and gain exp, while having two more, as FE teaches us, gives you a massive advantage. Then there are classes and roles that aren't focused around combat or stats. You even mentioned some of them, how useful are those roleplaying airplanes if they cannot fly?

It's a different stat from most others, but it's critical to almost any type of performance. If anything, the fact that you need 3 to 4 stats to have good combat while you just need one to have good movement has predictable consequences.
 

HP: 7/10
One of the hardest stats to rate. It doesn't match most others numerically, and it's almost always strictly defensive, in a series that often gives you the tools to eventually ignore that side of combat. Plus, it has noticeably diminishing returns. At the same time, it's incredibly important early on when the two previous statements don't apply, and while making HP pointless is possible, it's not always convenient or practical to do so. Plus, defensive stats also get bonus points because of permadeath. In many comparable games, having your HP depleted doesn't matter nearly as much as it does for most of the FE series.

STR: 9/10
Straightforward, it's the primary combat stat in a majority of situations. It's arguably superior to speed but I like having those two tied. Not much to say here, really.

MAG: 8/10
Considering the much more modest place magic damage has, this is this close to strength because it also affects other things, specifically staves, but also mixed combat, and it hits the usually much lower res. Plus it's still strength for a 4th to a 3rd or all FE characters, basically.

SKL: 6/10
This is the stat that varies the most in value from game to game. In 3H, it's next to worthless, in FE5 and 6, it's pretty great. This shifts depending on how the RNG works, what the formulas are, how much avoid enemies usually have, how much innate accuracy weapons give... This is definitely just an average.

SPD: 9/10
This could be controversial. Speed is the diminishing returns stat, in that once you can double, getting more loses 90% of its appeal in the moment. Still, not only is doubling obviously great, but so is not getting doubled, and dodgetanking, aka what is arguably the strongest form of survival in FE, is always largely based on speed. It's not a 9/10 in every game, unlike strength is, but I'd still say it fits.

LCK: 3/10
I really like luck, it's such an interesting stat. I really wish it was better on average, and there are some games where formulas or skills make it good. But usually, having terrible luck is fine, and that's not a great sign is it.

DEF: 7/10
Cf my HP rating about defense and permadeath. Unlike HP, it does nothing for magic damage, also unlike HP, getting more when you have none doesn't matter, and getting more when you have a lot is really, really good. Mitigating damage is always something devs have to keep in check because it's the quickest way to invincibility, and there's a reason this stat has historically lower growths than everything else. Also this one isn't really an unhelpful average like for HP and skill, I'd say it's roughly this good in every single game.

RES: 4/10
Magic damage is too rare and too easily dealt with by HP on its own for this to get any higher. Still a mitigation stat, though, and having a ton of it instantly gives you a niche on most any team.

CHA: 3/10
Another one I wish was better, unfortunately it suffers a very restrictive dynamic cap and influences battalion damage very little. It's still your primary accuracy source for one of the most overpowered tools 3H brings though, so I can't put it any lower.

MOV: 10/10
I kinda said my piece already, didn't I. Movement is by far the most restricted stat around, and for very good reason.

Edited October 6, 2021 by Cysx

[ping]

3 hours ago, Florete said:

Melady, Jill, Haar (RD), Heath, and Cormag are good, but Def is a small part of it, if a part of it at all. Flight and powerful offense are much bigger factors. Consider that in all of these cases, the fliers considered the best in their respective games are almost always the ones who are around the longest, regardless of their Def stat.

Shanna > Milady isn't a take I was expecting to see. (<-- not a serious contribution to the argument)

I think you're massively underselling the ability of said units to just fly into a group of enemies and just enemyphase the heck out of them. When using Shanna and Tate, it's always necessary to be very aware of every single enemy that might engage them; Milady tends to do just fine as long as you keep an eye on enemy archers and mages.

Your early pegasus knights placing high on most tier lists is a testament that availability is usually rated highly. It does not necessarily reflect on how they compare to the classic midgame wyvern rider - Milady outclasses Shanna the second she promotes and Heath will very soon be your strongest flyer. Cormag might take a little longer, I'm not sure how SacSto's benchmarks work out for him vs. Vanessa.

I would argue that all of Milady, Cormag, and Heath would be even better than Shanna/Vanessa/Florina if they joined alongside them. All those peg knights (except for a LynMode-trained Florina) have somewhat shaky combat in the earlygame, with their frailty being no small reason for that. An early flyer that can immediately take more than a single hit, i.e. have a decent to good Def stat, would be great in all GBA FE titles.

2 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Movement is among the worst stats in the franchise, possibly only surpassing SKL, LCK, CHA. 

Every good unit in the franchise is good, not because they move a lot, but because they deal a lot of damage, they heal a lot or othe staff utility, they can take a lot of damage or are roleplaying airplanes for other units.

Thus, in order for MOV to be good, all other relevant stats must already be good. MOV does not make units good, it ENHANCES.

But no excellent unit in the entire franchise has bad movement.

It's true that a unit that has great movement but nothing else won't be good, but the same is true for every stat. High Spd doesn't mean a lot if you just tink the enemy twice. A unit with awesome Def won't be of great use if it does no damage in return. Et cetera, et cetera.

However, I would say that if a unit is only good at one single aspect, mobility might be the best pick, at least in games with rescue mechanics. BinBla has Yuno, whose combat is complete horseshit, but she's considered a valid pick for the big battle vs. Murdock solely based on her rescue utility, for example. And if you would put Shanna's stats on an Armour Knight, the resulting unit would universally be considered trash, while Shanna on a pegasus is usually found in the upper regions of BinBla tier lists.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

1 hour ago, Cysx said:

Similarly, having even as little as minus 2 move than average will seriously limit your opportunities to contribute and gain exp, while having two more, as FE teaches us, gives you a massive advantage. Then there are classes and roles that aren't focused around combat or stats. You even mentioned some of them, how useful are those roleplaying airplanes if they cannot fly

Opportunities you can follow up on, not because you have the MOV to get there, but because you have the stats to survive whatever situation it is. If you have the MOV to attack the enemy, but not the stats to survive it, that probably means the player has to give the enemy the ol´ reliable bait and switch with any one unit who can survive. MOV just gets you in a situation, but without the stats to resolve it, you´ll die - situations that will come about regardless of MOV, since in FE there´s always(?) 2 players.

Again: MOV doesn´t resolve combat - it only dictates when you enter it. And surviving AND winning combat is relatively important in most FEs.

1 minute ago, ping said:

It's true that a unit that has great movement but nothing else won't be good, but the same is true for every stat.

cries in LCK, SKL, CHA 

5 minutes ago, ping said:

But no excellent unit in the entire franchise has bad movement.

Imagine forgetting to add a "on top of moving a lot", to your argument. Yep, that´s me. 

33 minutes ago, ping said:

However, I would say that if a unit is only good at one single aspect, mobility might be the best pick, at least in games with rescue mechanics.

...or you could use the Warp staff.

19 minutes ago, ping said:

And if you would put Shanna's stats on an Armour Knight, the resulting unit would universally be considered trash, while Shanna on a pegasus is usually found in the upper regions of BinBla tier lists.

I haven´t gotten very far into BinBla yet, but answer me this: if Shannas aid stat was 1 and she had a horse instead, would she still be found in the upper regions of BinBla? If not, then the fact she´s roleplaying an airplan is the reason for her high evaluation. Her MOV just ENHANCES her usefulness. 

Aren´t most Armour Knight considered trash not (just) because of their MOV but because their stats are fucken garbage? 

 

Which scenario softlocks you harder? The one where all units have infinite MOV but not a single stat point to their name, or the one where all units have 1 MOV but max stats? 

[Cysx]

11 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

Opportunities you can follow up on, not because you have the MOV to get there, but because you have the stats to survive whatever situation it is. If you have the MOV to attack the enemy, but not the stats to survive it, that probably means the player has to give the enemy the ol´ reliable bait and switch with any one unit who can survive. MOV just gets you in a situation, but without the stats to resolve it, you´ll die - situations that will come about regardless of MOV, since in FE there´s always(?) 2 players.

Again: MOV doesn´t resolve combat - it only dictates when you enter it. And surviving AND winning combat is relatively important in most FEs.

I honestly see this as you going at this backward. Yes, combat is important. So is movement. I really don't think you need my input to realize what is flawed about your logic if you're willing to think on it, and if you aren't, there's nothing for me to do either. So I'll stop there.

Edited October 6, 2021 by Cysx

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

31 minutes ago, Cysx said:

I honestly see this as you going at this backward. Yes, combat is important. So is movement. I really don't think you need my input to realize what is flawed about your logic if you're willing to think on it, and if you aren't, there's nothing for me to do either. So I'll stop there.

So you didn´t have anything to contribute to begin with, got it. 

[Cysx]

7 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

So you didn´t have anything to contribute to begin with, got it. 

You pretty much just confirmed that we wouldn't get anywhere. I'm curious to see what others have to say about it, though.

[FailWood]

5 hours ago, Florete said:

Melady, Jill, Haar (RD), Heath, and Cormag are good, but Def is a small part of it, if a part of it at all. Flight and powerful offense are much bigger factors. Consider that in all of these cases, the fliers considered the best in their respective games are almost always the ones who are around the longest, regardless of their Def stat.

I'd say in Haar's (RD) case, Defense plays a big part of why he's good because it means he can more reliably utilize all of his Movement without the player worrying about the fear of death as much.  And even if he doesn't have the Speed to double, he'll most likely soften up the enemy enough for his squishy allies to finish off.  I'd much rather lead with a unit who can afford to take hits in case they don't dodge instead of a unit who relies on dodging to survive.  Things can go horribly wrong for speed demons like Mia (RD) if they suddenly don't feel like dodging.

Edited October 6, 2021 by FailWood

[lenticular]

As a little gedankenexperiment, let's consider what a unit would look like if it had one of its stats set to 1,000,000 and all its other stats set to 1:

• Speed: A perfect dodge tank who will literally never be hit. However, doing damage in return will be difficult due to the lack of strength or skill. Depending on the game, you might be able to get enough bonuses from supports, weapons, skills, etc. to actually be able to do some damage in which case you will win the war of attrition thanks to never being hit yourself. Even if you can't do any damage, you would still be able to effectively hold a choke point or perform a similar tanking role.
• Luck: Similar to speed but better. Not only are you never taking a hit, you also have perfect accuracy for your own attacks (in most games). You still have to get enough might from weapons, skills, etc. if you want to do any damage, but that's a lot easier than getting both might and hit that you need with speed.
• HP: Similar to speed but worse. You'd be hit all the time and take a ton of damage, but with that much HP you wouldn't care. Any enemy skills that do damage as a fraction of total HP (eg, Poison Strike) would destroy you. And you still have all the problems of trying to hit or do damage.
• Defense: A perfect physical tank, but will be instantly destroyed by a single enemy mage. And you still can't hit anything or do damage.
• Resistance: The mirror image of defense except worse because there are more physically attacking enemies than magically attacking one.
• Strength: You kill everything you hit! Except that you never hit anything and you die in a single hit.
• Magic: As terrible as strength for a combat unit, but would make for a fantastic healer. Get this person a physic staff, stat.
• Skill: You hit with all of your attacks, but then you do either no or low damage and get instantly killed on the counter-attack. However, you will also have 100% chance to proc skills, so this could be a workable build. An assassin with Lethality and Stillness could be great.
• Charm: On the plus side, you're great at using offensive gambits. On the minus side, you're terrible at everything else.
• Move: Excellent mobility could be great for picking up secondary objectives like chests, or for one-turn strategies on maps with objectives like seize, arrive or escape. Would also make for a really good dancer. Combat potential is zero.

So what have we learned from all of this? Well, not very much because the whole idea was silly. But beyond that, we've learned that most attributes are largely garbage on their own and need to be backed up with other attributes if they're going to do anything. If you only have one unit and they only have one attribute, then luck is probably the best one, but speed and HP could potentially also get the job done, though not as well. Builds based entirely on skill, magic and move are also potentially viable, but only as support for other units with other attributes.

In conclusion, luck is definitely, unambiguously and objectively the best stat. Maybe.

[Eltosian Kadath]

4 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Movement is among the worst stats in the franchise, possibly only surpassing SKL, LCK, CHA. 

...Did you mean to post this in the unpopular opinion post? Mov is the best stats hands down in almost every game in the franchise. Even without any other stats, high move gives you greater control over AI's behavior, let's you more easily block enemy reinforcements, and complete objectives faster (and thus often with less risk) than lower move units. More Mov gives you more control over how many (and which) enemies you face on enemy phase, as well as arranging better terrain positions (whether that is gaining the advantages yourself, or denying the enemy them when they advance) letting you use their other stats to their fullest, whether that is killing more enemies than they otherwise would each turn, or being able to reach a situation where they can survive better than they otherwise would.

 

1 hour ago, ping said:

And if you would put Shanna's stats on an Armour Knight, the resulting unit would universally be considered trash,

That is a cute way to add Meg to the discussion.

 

48 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

...or you could use the Warp staff.

Which is almost always too valuable to squander all willy nilly, barring perhaps FE11 (which doesn't have the rescue mechanic, hence not one of the games he was talking about...)

 

1 hour ago, Imuabicus said:

 

Which scenario softlocks you harder? The one where all units have infinite MOV but not a single stat point to their name, or the one where all units have 1 MOV but max stats? 

Both have clear softlock potential, as 1 Mov softlocks any map with terrain (some even have extra throne movement costs making all seize objectives unobtainable...). Although with weapons having stats of their own \you could probably pull off quite a few with the infinite move party (perhapse with some RNG abuse help), so depending on the game (and difficulty) it could easily go either way. Although if you are less hyperbolic with the "not a single stat point to their name", I will point out that 0%  growth rate runs of basically every Fire Emblem game and difficulty is achievable, and Mov tends to play a massive role in the success of those runs. Heck, even negative growth rates are achievable on some...

[Shaky Jones]

14 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

That is a cute way to add Meg to the discussion.

Finally. Meg discussion. 10/10. I love capping RES at 10. 

Since the discussion seems to have shifted to a focus on the defense stat now, I suppose I should share my take on the stat as a whole, since I've only used FE7 as an example.

40 minutes ago, FailWood said:

I'd say in Haar's (RD) case, Defense plays a big part of why he's good because it means he can more reliably utilize all of his Movement without the player worrying about the fear of death as much.  And even if he doesn't have the Speed to double, he'll most likely soften up the enemy enough for his squishy allies to finish off.  I'd much rather lead with a unit who can afford to take hits in case they don't dodge instead of a unit who relies on dodging to survive.  Things can go horribly wrong for speed demons like Mia (RD) if they suddenly don't feel like dodging.

I agree. Defense plays a big role in Haar's utility. Flying is always nice, but flying units that can take heavy hits are always going to be top tier units, even if Haar isn't among the faster units. It's nice to throw Haar in spot that can bait out and soften up enemies to set up for easy kills on the player phase. Of course, Haar can typically double reliably if you give him the first speedwing in Part 2, then just dump bonus exp on him once he caps other stats. But even when I don't do that, Haar is still among the most helpful units in the game, maybe even the series, and defense definitely plays a big role in that.

3 hours ago, Cysx said:

Mitigating damage is always something devs have to keep in check because it's the quickest way to invincibility, and there's a reason this stat has historically lower growths than everything else

This is how I see defense. It has to be kept low because of how broken it would be if it was as high as everything else. I see a lot of posts here arguing about how the low defense growth overall determines whether that makes it more or less useful. I think it means a bit of both. On one hand, if DEF growths were good, it would only take a bit of lucky levels to have units reach defense stats that make them practically invincible, making the game become boring. If you could easily reach tanks that just stop you from taking damage, or only take 2 damage that you could easily heal back up with a vulnerary, then it wouldn't make for a good strategy game. That's why armor knights seem to almost always get screwed over, having no res to get deleted my mages, or just repeatedly placing hammers in so many map, like in Thracia (I remember a lot of hammers). Fire Emblem doesn't want you outright making one unit strong enough to instantly mitigate all challenge, although it's definitely still possible. They need you to have low defense so that each battle matters. You need to care about how many hits you can take, and that encourages more player phase actions. 

On the other hand, the fact that DEF growths are so low can imply that it's unnecessary to have in order to be a great unit. I've done runs in New Mystery (maniac) where my entire army has 15% DEF growth or less (excluding Marth and Kris), and I felt just fine. Everyone 2 shots my army, but since I had high speed and strength, it honestly felt easier than usual to beat stages by just outperforming the enemy in aggressiveness. This is why I feel like DEF comes down to how helpful enemy phase actions are in the FE game. I'd say DEF is quite helpful on the Tellius games, since they can have quite the number of enemies at times, and having cavs and wyverns with good defense help you reach farther areas to route the enemy faster for bonus exp. I also still believe it's pretty neat on FE7, but as @Dark Holy Elf said about units like Raven, DEF still isn't the all powerful stat that makes you great. I wouldn't call Oswin top tier by any means. Just rather helpful. Speed is still more important to have, but tanking enemies on their attacking phase makes things way easier, whereas it only helps somewhat in the DS games, since so many enemies use fortify to heal their HP back up. Either way, I still think DEF is the 3rd most important skill in the series. I can't see myself putting skill or resistance above it. I know I used Haar as an example that kind of says that his good defense outweighs his mediocre speed, but that man has the ridiculous advantge of having absurd base stats in everything else, while being a wyvern rider with canto+ and a lot of HP. I suppose one could say that it depends on your playstyle, maybe? Take FE3H maddening. You can use fortress knights with batallions that heavily increase defense (like that Duscur one that gives 10 defense if I remember right), and they can reach over 60 DEF by endgame, tanking even the war masters. Of course, you could also just use dodge tanks with like 15 endgame DEF, but with speed and skills so high that enemies will rarely hit you, using your divine pulses on the times that you do get unlucky. Or you could do neither and just rely on stride and warps to flank them by surprise, mostly using player phases to destroy them with combat arts before they get to attack. You could argue which is better, but they all work for the most part. I've done all three and the runs turn out just fine. I guess since we're ranking stats, we would argue about how helpful defense was here, and I would say it's probably one of the weaker choices. However, it is the easiest method, as you're just training an armor guy with a batallion. Not much other planning is needed.

I'd say DEF is a very helpful stat, but is mostly unessarcy to having a good army, provided you have the STR and SPD to back your guys up.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, ping said:

Shanna > Milady isn't a take I was expecting to see. (<-- not a serious contribution to the argument)

I think you're massively underselling the ability of said units to just fly into a group of enemies and just enemyphase the heck out of them. When using Shanna and Tate, it's always necessary to be very aware of every single enemy that might engage them; Milady tends to do just fine as long as you keep an eye on enemy archers and mages.

Your early pegasus knights placing high on most tier lists is a testament that availability is usually rated highly. It does not necessarily reflect on how they compare to the classic midgame wyvern rider - Milady outclasses Shanna the second she promotes and Heath will very soon be your strongest flyer. Cormag might take a little longer, I'm not sure how SacSto's benchmarks work out for him vs. Vanessa.

I would argue that all of Milady, Cormag, and Heath would be even better than Shanna/Vanessa/Florina if they joined alongside them. All those peg knights (except for a LynMode-trained Florina) have somewhat shaky combat in the earlygame, with their frailty being no small reason for that. An early flyer that can immediately take more than a single hit, i.e. have a decent to good Def stat, would be great in all GBA FE titles.

But no excellent unit in the entire franchise has bad movement.

It's true that a unit that has great movement but nothing else won't be good, but the same is true for every stat. High Spd doesn't mean a lot if you just tink the enemy twice. A unit with awesome Def won't be of great use if it does no damage in return. Et cetera, et cetera.

However, I would say that if a unit is only good at one single aspect, mobility might be the best pick, at least in games with rescue mechanics. BinBla has Yuno, whose combat is complete horseshit, but she's considered a valid pick for the big battle vs. Murdock solely based on her rescue utility, for example. And if you would put Shanna's stats on an Armour Knight, the resulting unit would universally be considered trash, while Shanna on a pegasus is usually found in the upper regions of BinBla tier lists.

Actually, depending on the map design, a u it that has fantastic defense but virtually no damage output could still be quite useful for baiting and blocking enemies. Massive strength and nothing else would be useless for not being accurate or fast enough to one round, massive speed would be useless without power to actually make doubling effective. Massive accuracy would be useless without some damage to do. But a unit wit crazy high defense, yeah they could contribute something just from taking a solid amount of axes to the face.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

2 hours ago, Cysx said:

You pretty much just confirmed that we wouldn't get anywhere. I'm curious to see what others have to say about it, though.

And while you are on your way out, you can think about how to have a discussion with someone. I really don´t think you need my input to realize what is flawed with your selfabsorbed approach of posting cryptic messages, if you're willing to think on it. 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Which is almost always too valuable to squander all willy nilly, barring perhaps FE11 (which doesn't have the rescue mechanic, hence not one of the games he was talking about...)

I thought the fact that was taken out of a humorous series about FE would be indicator enough that that was meant as a joke. 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Both have clear softlock potential, as 1 Mov softlocks any map with terrain (some even have extra throne movement costs making all seize objectives unobtainable...). 

Yeah, if only there were mechanics that would allow you to ignore certain terrain restrictions. Like, I dunno, rescue dropping. Or shoving. Or not being affected by certain terrain. Or being a flier.

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

...Did you mean to post this in the unpopular opinion post? Mov is the best stats hands down in almost every game in the franchise. Even without any other stats, high move gives you greater control over AI's behavior, let's you more easily block enemy reinforcements, and complete objectives faster (and thus often with less risk) than lower move units. More Mov gives you more control over how many (and which) enemies you face on enemy phase, as well as arranging better terrain positions (whether that is gaining the advantages yourself, or denying the enemy them when they advance) letting you use their other stats to their fullest, whether that is killing more enemies than they otherwise would each turn, or being able to reach a situation where they can survive better than they otherwise would.

Yes and at some point you will have blocked all reinforcements, controlled AI behavior to the max and completed all side objectives and then you will realize that there are enemies on the map that you actively have to deal with and can´t run away from. The reason MOV is so highly rated is because Fire Emblems best units have relevant stats in abundance to survive whatever their MOV gets them into.

Take any good unit and remove any amount of MOV - are they suddenly F-Tier? Take any bad unit and increase their MOV by 50% - are they suddenly S-Tier?

Now take any good unit and remove... I dunno let´s say 10 points from every stat. Are they still good? Also add 10 points to every stat of a bad unit. Are they still a bad unit?

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Although if you are less hyperbolic with the "not a single stat point to their name", I will point out that 0%  growth rate runs of basically every Fire Emblem game and difficulty is achievable, and Mov tends to play a massive role in the success of those runs. Heck, even negative growth rates are achievable on some...

I am aware. Most of which seem to avoid fighting as much as possible as their units barely have the ability to remove bosses from their thrones and vastly seem to hinge on the stat bonuses they get from their units promotion and the game-dependant irrelevance of generic non-boss enemies.

There are no 0 stat runs I am aware of. 

Edited October 6, 2021 by Imuabicus

[Shadow Mir]

7 hours ago, Florete said:

Movement is not a combat stat and therefore not properly comparable.

Defense is lower on average, yet many of these units are still very good, because having a high Defense stat isn't important. The idea that it's lower because it's more valuable makes no sense to me. A unit with high enough Str, Skl, Spd, and Lck can render Def (and Res) completely worthless, but the same doesn't go in the other direction; no matter how much Def you have, you still want the offensive stats, because offense is key to winning in Fire Emblem.

I will add the caveat that Def becomes less important the more skilled a player is at the game because the best way to survive isn't to take less damage, it's to take no damage via your enemy already being dead.

Defensive stats were lower, and yet the best units often have little to no want for more.

Oswin would be bad without his survivability because it's all he has to his name to begin with. It doesn't make him a good unit (he's average at best), it just prevents him from being utter trash.

Melady, Jill, Haar (RD), Heath, and Cormag are good, but Def is a small part of it, if a part of it at all. Flight and powerful offense are much bigger factors. Consider that in all of these cases, the fliers considered the best in their respective games are almost always the ones who are around the longest, regardless of their Def stat.

More Def never hurts, but on many units it becomes superfluous. Obviously a unit who already has high Skl and average Def would rather get more Def, but in most contexts within FE as a series currently, I'd rather a unit get more Skl than more Def.

At the same time, I'd say Defense is still important to an extent. Especially in Fates; oftentimes, if magic or effective weapons aren't an issue, I'm better off leading with, say, Xander to bear the brunt of the enemy assault than someone like Charlotte, who things can quickly go south for if the RNG decides that they aren't gonna dodge.

22 hours ago, Ertrick36 said:

HP: C - This is not as important as defense or resistance.  If you have 20 HP but 25 defense and the enemy has an attack stat of 25 and they are able to double you, they will deal 0 damage.  But if you swap the HP and defense values, they'll deal 10 damage, and you'll be down to 3/5 of your health.  Of course, having good HP is important to give you a strong safety net, but you aren't much of a tank if your value as a tank is put mostly into HP instead of defense.  There's a reason people say that Benny in FE: Fates is a tank but not Charlotte.

At the same time, there's a reason why many people, myself and probably you included, don't consider Rinkah a good tank.

Edited October 6, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[Cysx]

1 minute ago, Imuabicus said:

And while you are on your way out, you can think about how to have a discussion with someone. I really don´t think you need my input to realize what is flawed with your selfabsorbed approach of posting cryptic messages, if you're willing to think on it. 

I ain't leaving though.

... but seriously, I didn't mean to antagonize you(my last message was misworded in that regard, it was more of a "see, neither of us are listening here" instead of the "gotcha you pleb" it probably came off as). I just think you're very obviously wrong, also your rebuttal ignored half of my response, and... idk, I'm just not feeling it man.

Which is fine, again, there are other people.

[Interdimensional Observer]

6 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Thus, in order for MOV to be good, all other relevant stats must already be good. MOV does not make units good, it ENHANCES.

I'm not going to wholeheartedly come over to your side. However, it is indeed the case that we have had mediocre or lousy high Move units.:

• FE3 (both Books)- Est, Arran, Vyland, Roshea, Matthis, Warren (once promoted), Sedgar, Wolf, Midia, 
• FE4- Naoise and Alec get to the action in Gen 1, unlike Arden, but they're chippers at best. Diarmuid and Lester even with good fathers tend to be seen as a bit lackluster among the Gen 2 children. 
• FE5- Hicks, Cain, Alva, Fred, Glade, Eda, Conomor, Amalda, Diarmuid.
• FE6- Juno. Maybe Trec and Noah? Marcus and Zelot have Jagen utility in the short term. Cecilia is balanced, and Zeiss is okay.
• FE7- Can't say mounties are that bad here. Vaida comes late, Isadora is fragile and can't effectively use axes, but they're not bad.
• FE8- Syrene. Amelia if you send her that way.
• FE9- No bad horses.
• FE10- Fiona, Astrid. Others run into tricky RD availability issues that undermine whatever their stats are (and this already affects Fiona and Astrid).
• FE15- Mycen. Clive is a mixed bag at best. None of the Ram boys nor Atlas want to go Cav.
• Every FE after 10 excluding 15: ERROR! UNITS CAN FREELY RECLASS! HIGH MOVE IS A CHOICE, NOT AN IMMUTABLE PART OF ONESELF!

[ping]

42 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I'm not going to wholeheartedly come over to your side. However, it is indeed the case that we have had mediocre or lousy high Move units.:

1 hour ago, Imuabicus said:

Take any good unit and remove any amount of MOV - are they suddenly F-Tier? Take any bad unit and increase their MOV by 50% - are they suddenly S-Tier?

Now take any good unit and remove... I dunno let´s say 10 points from every stat. Are they still good? Also add 10 points to every stat of a bad unit. Are they still a bad unit?

I feel like these arguments look at the speck of sawdust in Movement's eye, but pay no attention to the plank in every other stat's eye. The claim isn't that high movement automatically makes a unit great (which I explicitly stated in my previous post). The claim (or at least my claim) is that if a unit was only good in one single stat, Movement would be the most useful. I've cited Yuno (who obviously isn't good, but still quite useful in ch.21), we can add FE6!Marcus in the lategame, or Shanna in Dondon's FE6 run.

And yes, there are high-move units that aren't very good. Sure. There are also bad high-Str, bad high-Skl, bad high-Spd, bad high-Lck, bad high-Def, and bad high-Res units aplenty. If movement would automatically make a character top-tier, it wouldn't be a good stat, it would be a broken stat.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Actually, depending on the map design, a u it that has fantastic defense but virtually no damage output could still be quite useful for baiting and blocking enemies. Massive strength and nothing else would be useless for not being accurate or fast enough to one round, massive speed would be useless without power to actually make doubling effective. Massive accuracy would be useless without some damage to do. But a unit wit crazy high defense, yeah they could contribute something just from taking a solid amount of axes to the face.

That's true. I'm thinking of Valbar, who at least in Gaiden is fairly useful during the numerous boat maps to choke some points while Celica, May, and Boey rain 2-3-ranged attacks on the enemy. I still think that Movement is far more consistent - it regularly elevates earlygame pegasi to top tier positions despite their usually middling combat stats (let's not talk about the DS remakes here).

[Clear World]

7 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Movement is among the worst stats in the franchise, possibly only surpassing SKL, LCK, CHA. 

Every good unit in the franchise is good, not because they move a lot, but because they deal a lot of damage, they heal a lot or othe staff utility, they can take a lot of damage or are roleplaying airplanes for other units.

Thus, in order for MOV to be good, all other relevant stats must already be good. MOV does not make units good, it ENHANCES.

The fact that you think Movement is among the 'worst' stats is a big statement in how little you understand how mobility impacts the game outside of direct combat.

On a side note: A large part of why I think MOV is often held in high regards to most is due to the fact that in many FE game, there isn't actually a lot of ways to play/substitute/work around Mobility. So if a character lacks MOV, they more or less lack mobility for the entire game.

If there was more things like that Gambit in 3 Houses that grants every nearby ally +5 Move or easy access to Warp/Rescue, the value of MOV stat would drop overall. This also takes that assumption that we don't get more stuff like FE4 Canto+ & map design which makes MOV stat utility so damn useful.

Edited October 6, 2021 by Clear World

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

7 hours ago, Cysx said:

.... but seriously, I didn't mean to antagonize you(my last message was misworded in that regard, it was more of a "see, neither of us are listening here" instead of the "gotcha you pleb" it probably came off as). I just think you're very obviously wrong, also your rebuttal ignored half of my response, and... idk, I'm just not feeling it man.

 

1) While this series in particular doesn't dabble too much into that territory, s-rpg units with next to no move(1 or 2) will typically suck no matter how high everything else is.

2) Similarly, having even as little as minus 2 move than average will seriously limit your opportunities to contribute and gain exp, while having two more, as FE teaches us, gives you a massive advantage. Then there are classes and roles that aren't focused around combat or stats. 2.1) You even mentioned some of them, how useful are those roleplaying airplanes if they cannot fly?

3) It's a different stat from most others, but it's critical to almost any type of performance. If anything, the fact that you need 3 to 4 stats to have good combat while you just need one to have good movement has predictable consequences.

1) This does not concern FE. I talk exclusively about FE.

2) This has been responded to. 2.1) Flying and MOV are 2 different things. I make this specifically clear in my first response to ping asking about the difference between a Pegasus and a Horse Shanna.

3) What are you trying to say here.

1 hour ago, ping said:

I feel like these arguments look at the speck of sawdust in Movement's eye, but pay no attention to the plank in every other stat's eye. The claim isn't that high movement automatically makes a unit great (which I explicitly stated in my previous post). The claim (or at least my claim) is that if a unit was only good in one single stat, Movement would be the most useful. I've cited Yuno (who obviously isn't good, but still quite useful in ch.21), we can add FE6!Marcus in the lategame, or Shanna in Dondon's FE6 run.

I´ll ask you again, but do you one better: infinite MOV Shanna, but only 5 AID. Is she still good? Or let´s turn it around. Give any of the bad units you posted any amount of MOV you want. Are they suddenly high tier units?

1 hour ago, Clear World said:

The fact that you think Movement is among the 'worst' stats is a big statement in how little you understand how mobility impacts the game outside of direct combat.

Enlighten me wise one, for this unworthy one is seeking greater arcane knowledge. 

[Cysx]

1 hour ago, Imuabicus said:

1) This does not concern FE. I talk exclusively about FE.

2) This has been responded to. 2.1) Flying and MOV are 2 different things. I make this specifically clear in my first response to ping asking about the difference between a Pegasus and a Horse Shanna.

3) What are you trying to say here.

Do we have any reason to think it would be any different for FE, though?

I brought up flying to fit the plane analogy, I wasn't thinking of fliers in particular. Horses can ferry as well, but not with low MOV.

I'm saying that the fact that combat is divided in so many stats limits the value of each of them to an extent. One could say there are two big poles to Fire Emblem, combat and movement(and then add support as a lesser third). Picture an FE game where your HP is also your STR, your SPD, your DEF and your SKL, and is just called WIN. WIN would be an incredibly pivotal stat. Well that's basically what MOV is, for mobility. Thus, your argument inevitably becomes analogous to "Mobility doesn't matter", which is not a statement you'll get too many to agree with.

The one thing that goes your way is that how fast you win is irrelevant, only winning matters. You'll miss out on side objectives and every now and then you're actually timed but for the most part, nothing stops you from slowly getting a 1 MOV unit across most maps there are, disregarding terrain(though you'd need incredible combat to deal with being swarmed constantly). A lot of what makes movement good is arbitrary or optional. But, it still functions as a grading of how much one unit can accomplish in a single turn. It makes little sense to declare that one unit that can go ten spaces and see many more opportunities is just as good as one that can only move five, just because the player might choose not to capitalize on that difference. Also I don't even know if you'll agree with the above, so that's enough of that.

A good half of your argumentation is MOV vs everything else at once, which can be its own debate, but it does little to prove that most stats are superior individually, which I believe is what your stance is?

Edited October 6, 2021 by Cysx

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

So I'm going to consider the relative utility of stats (not including movement), within Three Houses, for particular unit archetypes. In order of how common I see said archetypes as being.

Physical Attacker: Str > Dex > Spd > Cha > all else

Magical Attacker: Mag > Spd > Luk > Dex > Cha > all else

Magical Support: Mag > most else > Str

Physical Lure: Def > HP > Spd > Luk > Cha > all else

Magical Lure: Res > HP > Spd > Luk > Cha > all else

Dodgetank: Spd > HP > Luk > Cha > Def > Res > Str > all else

General support: HP > Spd > Def > Cha > Res > Luk > all else

Note that some archetypee can overlap on a given unit, and some weren't spelled out ("Dancer" could fall into General Support or Dodgetank; a "Physical Attacker" one turn could become a "Magical Lure" the next).

I don't have time to average and rate the stats now, but I may come back to it later.

[Eltosian Kadath]

4 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Yeah, if only there were mechanics that would allow you to ignore certain terrain restrictions. Like, I dunno, rescue dropping. Or shoving. Or not being affected by certain terrain. Or being a flier.

None of those existing is about as likely as

4 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

There are no 0 stat runs I am aware of. 

These unseen 0 stat runs, which seemed to be the whole ludicrous premise of your scenario. Plus seeing as 4 of the games (FE1,3,11,&12) with the Throne softlocks don't have Rescue/shove mechanics, and no lord having flight (until they separated seizing from Lords entirely) still leaves a lot of 1 Mov softlocks on the table.

 

4 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

 

Take any good unit and remove any amount of MOV - are they suddenly F-Tier?

The answer is very clearly yes, as basically every early game flyer (barring Caede in FE11), has stats that would make them terrible without their move. While not an S to F drop, the otherwise mediocre Christmas cavaliers get carried by their extra Mov into the tiers they get. etc.

5 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

Take any bad unit and increase their MOV by 50% - are they suddenly S-Tier?

Depends on the unit, but some certainly would. I mean Ping's coy mention of Meg is a great example of one that would (well perhaps not S-tier simply due to the weird structure of RD, but of the DB she would jump into one of the top two or three...)

 

4 hours ago, Imuabicus said:

 

Now take any good unit and remove... I dunno let´s say 10 points from every stat. Are they still good? Also add 10 points to every stat of a bad unit. Are they still a bad unit?

The fact that you think a few points of move are comparable to 10 points in every stat (or Minimum/Maximum Mov being compared to Maximum/Minimum in every other stat) says a lot about how powerful you know Mov is, despite your argument...

 

 

3 hours ago, Clear World said:

On a side note: A large part of why I think MOV is often held in high regards to most is due to the fact that in many FE game, there isn't actually a lot of ways to play/substitute/work around Mobility. So if a character lacks MOV, they more or less lack mobility for the entire game.

Part of the reason I said Fates might be one of the games where Mov isn't the best stat is the way the interplay between Pair-up, Switch, Transfer, and Separate mechanics give your low movement units a way to work around their low move...

 

9 hours ago, Cysx said:

 

HP: 7/10
One of the hardest stats to rate. It doesn't match most others numerically, and it's almost always strictly defensive, in a series that often gives you the tools to eventually ignore that side of combat. Plus, it has noticeably diminishing returns.

Almost forgot about this, but HP is the one stat that I don't think has a real defined diminishing return point. There are always new # of hits you can take thresholds to reach. Strength has two clear diminishing return points, one where you one-round everything, and the more extreme one where you one-shot everything. Magic has the same two as Strength, plus ones for staff where they hit the fully heal every unit threshold, and another for the all status staves hit max accuracy threshold. Skill has two as well, the max accuracy against all enemies, and max crit against all enemies threashold. Speed's two are double every enemy, and enough evasion that all enemies hit minimum accuracy threshold. Luck has a few depending on the formula used in the game, but all enemies have minimum hit, minimum crit, and you have maximum hit are fairly normal. Defense and Resistance hit the enemies deal minimum damage threshold at some point (Res might even have a enemies have minimum status staff accuracy threshold depending on the game). CHA has a wierd one where it hits the minimum/maximum enemy/own gambit accuracy point, and an much more difficult to reach gambits can one-shot enemies threshold. Even Move has the theoretical can reach every point possible on the map from starting position, and reach every point on the map from every other point on the map thresholds. Most of these wont be reached, but HP not really having one is one of its more interesting features.

[Cysx]

10 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Almost forgot about this, but HP is the one stat that I don't think has a real defined diminishing return point. There are always new # of hits you can take thresholds to reach. Strength has two clear diminishing return points, one where you one-round everything, and the more extreme one where you one-shot everything. Magic has the same two as Strength, plus ones for staff where they hit the fully heal every unit threshold, and another for the all status staves hit max accuracy threshold. Skill has two as well, the max accuracy against all enemies, and max crit against all enemies threashold. Speed's two are double every enemy, and enough evasion that all enemies hit minimum accuracy threshold. Luck has a few depending on the formula used in the game, but all enemies have minimum hit, minimum crit, and you have maximum hit are fairly normal. Defense and Resistance hit the enemies deal minimum damage threshold at some point (Res might even have a enemies have minimum status staff accuracy threshold depending on the game). CHA has a wierd one where it hits the minimum/maximum enemy/own gambit accuracy point, and an much more difficult to reach gambits can one-shot enemies threshold. Even Move has the theoretical can reach every point possible on the map from starting position, and reach every point on the map from every other point on the map thresholds. Most of these wont be reached, but HP not really having one is one of its more interesting features.

It's definitely more of a curve, although specific skills aside(having just enough HP that certain skills will trigger in one hit, for example), I think Fatigue can kinda work as that? Aka you only need has much max HP as the amount of fatigue you'll spend until the end of the game. It's specific, though.